I write to provide you with preliminary guidance about some of the immediate issues facing districts, BOCES and collective bargaining agents related to collective bargaining agreements and the new comprehensive teacher and principal evaluation law (Education Law Section 3012-c as added by Chapter 103 of the Laws of 2010). The attached Questions and Answers document is the first step in our preliminary guidance to districts, BOCES, and all interested parties. Please remember that the new law will require implementing regulations. The Regents Task Force on Teacher and Principal Effectiveness (the advisory committee established under the new law) will need to review and make recommendations on many substantive issues in the statute. Upon receiving these recommendations, the Commissioner will need to formulate regulations for the approval of the Board of Regents so they are effective by July 1, 2011. Accordingly, any guidance SED provides at this time is preliminary and subject to change. This preliminary guidance is based upon our understanding of the intent of the law and information that is currently available.

The Department is also drafting additional questions and answers relating to specific provisions of the new law to give additional preliminary technical assistance to all parties based on the information available at this point in time. The Department plans to issue this second guidance document within the next couple of weeks.

Because there is much work to be done by the Regents Task Force and SED in making determinations on implementation of Chapter 103, many questions remain unanswered. Due to the many school districts and interested parties, I ask that individual schools districts work through their District Superintendents to address their questions. We will work to keep the District Superintendent and the Superintendents of the Big Five cities informed through future guidance documents.